Sidekick doesn’t run your automations. Shopify Flow does. Sidekick’s job is to help you design the rules, spell them out as precise trigger → condition → action steps, explain what a rule will actually do before it goes live, and — for supported workflows — build and activate it. Knowing that boundary is the difference between a clean automation setup and a store full of half-working rules nobody remembers writing.
Here’s how to use the pair properly.
Start with order tagging — it’s the foundation
Tags are what everything else filters on: fulfillment views, saved searches, shipping app rules, other Flows. Get tagging right first and the rest of your automation gets easier.
Ask Sidekick to design auto-tagging Flows across the dimensions that actually matter:
By order value
- Order over
[HIGH_VALUE_THRESHOLD, e.g. $200]→ taghigh-value - Order over
[VIP_THRESHOLD, e.g. $500]→ tagvip-order - Order under
[SMALL_ORDER_THRESHOLD, e.g. $20]→ tagsmall-order
By product type
- Contains fragile items →
handle-with-care - Contains personalized items →
custom-order - Contains pre-order items →
pre-order - Digital products only →
digital-delivery
By customer
- First-time customer →
first-order - Returning customer with 3+ orders →
loyal-customer - Wholesale customer →
wholesale
By location
- International orders →
international - Specific regions →
[YOUR REGION TAGS] - PO Box address →
po-box
By risk
- High fraud risk →
review-required - Multiple failed payments →
payment-issue
For each one, make Sidekick give you the trigger event, the conditions it checks, the actions it performs, and the tag naming convention — written out explicitly, not summarized. You want to be able to read the logic and catch a mistake before it touches a single order.
One note on naming: pick a convention and force Sidekick to stick to it. Mixed HighValue / high-value / high_value tags across ten Flows becomes unfilterable within a month.
Layer order notes on top of tags
Tags are for filtering. Notes are for humans in the warehouse. A Flow triggered on order created can write standardized packing instructions into the internal order note, so your packer sees the same wording every time instead of guessing.
Useful rule set to hand Sidekick:
- Any line item has the custom property
[GIFT_MESSAGE_PROPERTY]→ append: “GIFT ORDER — include gift message, no invoice in package.” - Any line item’s product has tag
[FRAGILE_TAG]→ append: “FRAGILE — use extra padding.” - Any line item’s product has tag
[PERSONALIZED_TAG]→ append: “CUSTOM ITEM — verify personalization details against line item properties before packing.” - Order has more than
[MULTI_ITEM_THRESHOLD]line items → append: “MULTI-ITEM ORDER — double-check pick list against packing slip.”
Two things to demand before it builds anything:
- Show me each rule and the exact note text it appends. Note wording is easy to get subtly wrong and annoying to retrofit across live orders.
- Confirm the product tags match my actual catalog. Sidekick will happily build a branch on
fragilewhen your catalog usesFragile-Item. That Flow will run forever and never fire.
Also understand the stacking behavior: if one order matches several rules, every matching note gets appended in branch order. They don’t merge into one sentence. Write each note so a stack of three still reads cleanly.
Escalate the exceptions
Not every automation is about volume. Some exist to make sure one specific event never gets missed.
High-value returns are the classic case. Trigger on return requested, condition on refund value at or above [HIGH_VALUE_RETURN_THRESHOLD, e.g. $500], then:
- Add order tag
[HIGH_VALUE_RETURN_TAG] - Append to the order note: “High-value return requested —
[RETURN_VALUE]. Reason:[RETURN_REASON].” - Send an internal email to
[FINANCE_AND_LEADERSHIP_EMAILS]with the order number and value in the subject line
Ask for a Flow preview and confirm the threshold before activating. If you’re also running a lower-threshold “returns needing manager approval” Flow, set this one meaningfully higher — otherwise both fire on the same returns and leadership learns to ignore the alerts.
Be clear on what this does and doesn’t do: it’s notification-only. Deciding whether to approve, decline, or negotiate a partial refund still happens manually in admin. The Flow guarantees someone knows, not that someone acts.
Map the whole customer lifecycle
Once tagging works, you can chain it into lifecycle automation — new subscriber, first-time buyer, repeat customer, VIP, at-risk, lapsed. Ask Sidekick to define, per stage, the Flow trigger and conditions, the customer tags to apply, the messaging and subject lines, and the timing between touchpoints.
A realistic shape: welcome sequence for subscribers who haven’t purchased, a post-purchase sequence for first-time buyers, VIP treatment at [VIP_ORDER_COUNT] orders or [VIP_SPEND_THRESHOLD] lifetime spend, a win-back sequence when someone goes quiet past [AT_RISK_DAYS], and a sunset path past [LAPSED_DAYS].
Here the boundary gets sharper. Flow handles the triggers and the tagging. The emails themselves go out through Shopify Email or whatever ESP you run. Sidekick writes the copy and the logic; it doesn’t send the campaign.
The habits that keep this from breaking
- Always require a preview before activation. “Show me the rules, then create and turn on the Flow after I confirm” costs one extra message and saves you from silent misfires.
- Verify tag and property names against your real catalog, every time. This is the top cause of a Flow that looks correct and does nothing.
- Set thresholds relative to each other, not in isolation, when Flows overlap.
- Ask what a rule does on edge cases — multiple matches, partial refunds, deleted tags. Sidekick explains rule behavior well when you ask directly.
Flow is the engine. Sidekick is the person who reads the manual, drafts the wiring diagram, and double-checks it before you throw the switch.